


All In A Day’s Work

by irlenolacroix



Series: The Smiling Twenties [9]
Category: Smile For Me (Video Game)
Genre: 1920s, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Gen, Medical, Nonbinary Character, Old Friends, semi-verbal character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21546127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irlenolacroix/pseuds/irlenolacroix
Summary: Wake up.Eat some kind of breakfast.Feed the cats before they meow themselves into oblivion.Take a shower. (Lukewarm. Not too hot or cold. No longer than ten minutes.)Brush teeth. Those are important.Put on work clothes.Head out the door at five-thirty in the morning.Another day in the life of Fay Dianthus.***Fay works long hours at the hospital. It doesn’t help that some of their closest friends happen to have occupations that often get them injured.
Relationships: Kamal Bora & Flower Kid
Series: The Smiling Twenties [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1500791
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	All In A Day’s Work

**Author's Note:**

> hey pals, may here!!! i struggled a lot with finishing this one and i’m actually really proud of how it came out, so i hope you all like it as well!!!
> 
> just as a pre-reading note, fay = flower kid. i hope i made that obvious enough in the story itself, but i wanted to make sure it was clear!
> 
> check out @thesmiling20s on tumblr for more info on this au! comments and kudos are greatly appreciated, y’all have a good day! :-)

Wake up.

Eat some kind of breakfast.

Feed the cats before they meow themselves into oblivion.

Take a shower. (Lukewarm. Not too hot or cold. No longer than ten minutes.)

Brush teeth. Those are important.

Put on work clothes.

Head out the door at five-thirty in the morning.

Another day in the life of Fay Dianthus.

Fay liked their job. The worst part about it was the long and irregular hours, but even that didn’t bother them too much. They liked helping people, and they got to do just that at the hospital. It helped that they were a damn good surgeon. Top of their class in medical school! They were skilled enough to have the privilege of ignoring the doctors who would call them a freak behind their back, knowing that their position wouldn’t be threatened. They really did like their job. Hell, they  _ loved _ their job. Even on the saddest days, dealing with sick children or a favorite patient dying, Fay at least got the feeling that they were doing something positive for other people. That was all they’d ever wanted to do.

They loved their job.

They were kind of dreading it today, though.

Fay got to work a little bit earlier than normal. Thank heavens. They’d definitely need a few minutes to prepare themselves for what was inevitably coming. They spent those few minutes inside, pretending to look through paperwork when in reality they were trying to calibrate their voice box. Most of their coworkers understood Fay’s manner of communication well enough, but…

“Hi, are you Dr. Dianthus?”

Fay looked up from the papers they’d been shuffling through. A bright-eyed intern stood in the doorway, her head tipped gently to one side.

Okay. Time to try and be a good teacher.

Fay nodded and got to their feet, giving a bright smile to the intern that they hoped didn’t betray any nerves. “H-hello!” they managed, reaching out a hand to shake. Their face went hot at their own stuttering, but the intern didn’t seem to notice. She smiled back and shook their hand, and Fay realized that she was probably just as anxious as they were.

“Hi! It’s nice to meet you! Sorry, this is my first time in a professional hospital setting… I, I mean, I’ve been in hospitals before! Obviously. But, uh, this is my first time as an intern, my first time learning… I am sort of like your apprentice for the day, aren’t I?” She let out a nervous giggle to punctuate her ramble.

Fay smiled, softer now, and nodded again. “Sort of.” They were relaxing a bit already. Maybe it was just because this girl sort of reminded them of an old friend from medical school. He was much less of an anxious mess nowadays, but Fay could still chuckle at the memory. No time to dwell on memories, though, not when they had a job to do. “Follow.”

“Um—okay!” The intern followed them out, looking around the hall as she did so. “So… what’s our first task today?”

“Watch me.” Fay turned a corner, the intern close behind. “New patient. Observe first, take notes.”

The intern nodded and looked at her clipboard. “...You don’t talk very much, do you?” She jumped slightly as soon as she said it. “Sorry! That was rude, wasn’t it…”

Fay almost laughed, shaking their head as they did so. “I don’t. Correct.” They stopped in front of a door left slightly ajar and looked over at the intern. “Come in.”

A woman was in the room, fidgeting with the fabric of her skirt as she sat in a chair. She looked up when Fay entered and immediately relaxed upon seeing them and the intern. “Oh, thank heavens, you’re not men,” she mumbled. “Please. None of the others will listen to me.”

Fay closed the door behind them and turned to the woman, glancing at their clipboard. “Gayle Jameson,” they read aloud. “Rapid pulse, headache, fatigue.”

“Hysteria,” the woman mumbled, her voice slightly muffled. “Everybody has said it’s hysteria. It’s not, there’s no way.”

The intern took a step closer to the woman, tipping her head to the side, looking back at Fay after a moment of consideration. “We’re evaluating her symptoms?”

Fay looked up from their clipboard. “Surgery tomorrow,” they said. “Want to… m-make sure it’s for… for the right thing. Nobody got it wrong.”

“They sure as hell got it wrong already,” the woman grumbled, looking up at Fay. “Tell me what’s wrong with me.”

“I will.” Fay put down their clipboard and approached the woman, glancing at the intern as they did so. “Watch.”

Her pulse was indeed rapid, about twice as fast as what her resting heart rate should be. Her blood pressure was fine. Her breathing was clear and easy, but her eyes couldn’t focus on anything. Fay was reminded of the symptoms of their own anxiety whenever it manifested itself, but they didn’t want to dismiss this as anxiety, not now. That could mean… Well, they didn’t want to subject her to what that could mean.

The intern was silent the whole time, taking notes, until finally she burst forth with a question. “Well…? Is it…”

Fay held up a hand. They looked the woman over, tipping their head curiously. “Say something.”

The woman hesitated. “...Something?” Her voice was again muffled, as if there was something in her mouth.

_ Oh, he would laugh at me for missing this for so long. _

“Toothache?”

“I… yes, for a while, but I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“Open.”

The woman was quiet for a moment, then opened her mouth so Fay could look inside. The intern leaned closer, watching as Fay shone a light into the woman’s mouth. Sure enough, there was an abscessed molar on her right side, surrounded by swelling that was much more obvious on the inside of the mouth.

“Infection,” Fay murmured, leaning away from the woman. “Tooth infection… Spreading to body. Caught early enough. Surgery tomorrow.” They smiled gently at her, reaching out to touch her arm. “You w-were right. You will be… will be fine.”

The woman seemed too relieved by knowing what was wrong to care about Fay’s odd speech patterns. “Thank you.”

Paperwork was filled out. Instructions were given. The door to the room closed.

“...How did you know to check her teeth?”

Fay turned to look at the intern. “Hm?”

“I mean…” The intern let out a small, incredulous breath of a laugh. “Her  _ teeth _ ! I never would have guessed… How did you know?”

Fay smiled and shrugged a little. “Good friend of mine in medical school… He was… Was g-going to be a dentist. Learned much from him.”

The intern nodded. “He… was going to be?”

“He…” Fay swallowed, but kept the smile on their face. “Chose a d—a different path.”  _ And how different that path is… _

The rest of the day passed fairly quickly. The intern was sweet and warm, and she learned quickly. Fay liked her well enough. They hoped to see her again sometime, she really did seem passionate about the work. They had to admit they were relieved when the day was over, though. Finally… maybe an hour or so to relax. They had someplace to be at ten.

They got home at nine and were met with incessant mewling from Violet and Carnation, the resident felines, as soon as they unlocked the door to their apartment. Feeding and petting them came first, of course. Changing clothes and eating dinner could wait. The forty-five minutes they were able to spend at home were spent in silence. They’d spent so much of the day speaking to others and they were utterly exhausted. The quiet gave them a chance to decompress, though. Besides… whoever it was that Kamal and Boris wanted them to meet, they’d probably already been warned that Fay was on the quieter side.

Nine forty-five. Time to go.

Fay never really went to the Habitat, not outside of work-related purposes. It was much too loud on a busy night, and besides, they didn’t drink. Kamal had asked them to meet there, though, so Fay supposed that whoever this new guy was, he wasn’t allowed to know where Kamal lived. At least not yet. Not until he proved himself trustworthy.

They parked their car about a block down, ever cautious about being seen, and headed down to the familiar laundromat. They made eye contact with Randy upon entering the main building and, to their relief, he simply smiled and nodded in understanding upon seeing them and went to open up the secret entrance. They really ought to spend more time with him, one medic to another… Now wasn’t the time, though. Kamal would be in the back. It was a Tuesday, after all.

Fay made a beeline for the office and smiled up at Gillis as they approached him. He smiled back, giving a little wave, and turned to knock on the door.

“Yeah?”

“Fay’s here for you.”

“Oh! Let them in!”

Gillis nodded and opened the door. Fay beamed at him before heading inside, waving brightly to Kamal and Boris. “Hello,” they said, their first word uttered in a little over an hour.

“Fay!” Kamal grinned upon seeing his friend, hopping down from his seat up on the desk to approach them. “Thanks for coming. You don’t have to stay too long, don’t worry, not unless you want to. I just… Boris and I, we’ve got someone we want you to meet.”

Fay had already spotted the ‘someone’. They hadn’t seen his face before, at least they didn’t think they had, but something about him looked familiar… Was this the son that Jimothan had told them about? Perhaps…

“Parsley Botch,” the new guy said, getting to his feet and extending a nervous-looking hand for Fay to shake. “It’s… Fay, right?”

_ Botch. _ Yeah, this was Jimothan’s kid. Fay smiled softly and reached out to shake his hand. “Doctor Fay Dianthus,” they said. “Pleasure.”

“Yeah, uh… you too.”

There was something…  _ something _ in the way that Kamal grinned encouragingly at Parsley, something in the slight anxiety in Parsley’s eyes and the way Boris watched them from the back of the room, an almost-too-gentle smile on his face… Something more was going on here than met the eye. Fay always fancied themselves the observant type. But they wouldn’t bring it up now. Not until Kamal inevitably brought it up in a pain-medication-induced stupor the next time they’d have to patch him up. Best to let them figure this out on their own.

They had another early morning tomorrow, anyways. 


End file.
